[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/23/19

[Rick Hasen]

“The Technology 202: Republicans make alleged conservative bias top priority at election security hearing”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105273>
Posted on May 23, 2019 8:12 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105273> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-technology-202/2019/05/23/the-technology-202-republicans-make-alleged-conservative-bias-top-priority-at-election-security-hearing/5ce5ab03a7a0a46b92a3fd8e/?utm_term=.0e27a7150459>:

Google, Facebook and Twitter executives came to Capitol Hill to testify about election security. Instead they faced a grilling about whether their platforms are biased against conservatives.

A string of Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee<https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/securing-us-election-infrastructure-and-protecting-political-discourse-0> skipped questions about how the companies were tackling disinformation campaigns or preventing Russians from purchasing political ads on their platforms in the run-up to the 2020 election. They were more interested in whether Facebook and Twitter were “shadow-banning” — quietly blocking or restricting — conservatives’ accounts on their platform….

The hearing highlights how Republicans have made it their default playbook to hammer the tech companies on this single issue over all others — even when faced with pressing national security concerns about foreign influence campaigns ahead of the 2020 elections. But it also underscores how, even in a divided Washington, both sides are threatening to crack down on Big Tech — though they have very different motivations for doing so.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, social media and social protests<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“Facebook Curbs Incentives to Sell Political Ads Ahead of 2020 Election Company; leaders considered dropping such ads, which are now viewed as a headache”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105271>
Posted on May 23, 2019 8:03 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105271> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-ends-commissions-for-political-ad-sales-11558603803?mod=djemalertNEWS>:

Facebook said it stopped paying commissions to employees who sell political ads, as the tech giant overhauls how it engages with campaigns ahead of elections<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-vows-to-fight-election-interference-the-spread-of-fake-news-11548680757?mod=article_inline> in 2020.

Once seen as a growth area, political ads are now viewed within Facebook as more of a headache, according to former employees and campaign staffers who work on digital strategies. In the wake of revelations about Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election<https://www.wsj.com/articles/full-stock-of-russia-linked-facebook-ads-shows-how-propaganda-sharpened-1525960804?mod=article_inline>, senior leaders at the company debated whether it should cease running political ads entirely, former employees familiar with the discussions said. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg made the final call to stay in the business, though changes will be made to how it operates, one former employee said.

Scrutiny of Facebook’s role in the political process<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-vows-to-fight-election-interference-the-spread-of-fake-news-11548680757?mod=article_inline> has only intensified over the past 18 months<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-says-criticism-of-its-russia-response-is-unfair-1542314466?mod=article_inline>, with allegations that its platforms have been used for attempted election manipulation efforts on six continents.
Facebook’s new approach to political ad sales is designed to eliminate incentives for employees to push a more-is-better strategy with campaigns. The ad-buying portal for campaigns is now largely self-serve, with Facebook staffers available to help campaigns register to buy ads, assist if certain ads are stuck in review and provide other basic customer service. Sales employees are no longer paid based on reaching or exceeding goals related to ads purchased promoting either a candidate or politically tinged messages in the U.S. and abroad, said Katie Harbath, Facebook’s global elections public policy director.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, social media and social protests<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>


“How the Rural-Urban Divide Became America’s Political Fault Line”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105269>
Posted on May 23, 2019 7:59 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105269> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT’s The Upshot:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/upshot/america-political-divide-urban-rural.html?searchResultPosition=1>

It’s true across many industrialized democracies that rural areas lean conservative while cities tend to be more liberal, a pattern partly rooted in the history of workers’ parties that grew up where urban factories did.
But urban-rural polarization has become particularly acute in America: particularly entrenched<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/upshot/this-election-highlighted-a-growing-rural-urban-split.html?module=inline>, particularly hostile<https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo22879533.html>, particularly lopsided in its consequences. Urban voters, and the party that has come to represent them, now routinely lose elections and power<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/upshot/wisconsin-republicans-rural-urban-voters.html?module=inline> even when they win more votes.

Democrats have blamed the Senate, the Electoral College<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/upshot/electoral-college-votes-states.html?module=inline> and gerrymandering for their disadvantage. But the problem runs deeper, according to Jonathan Rodden, a Stanford political scientist: The American form of government is uniquely structured to exacerbate the urban-rural divide — and to translate it into enduring bias against the Democratic voters, clustered at the left of the accompanying chart.

Yes, the Senate<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/upshot/as-american-as-apple-pie-the-rural-votes-disproportionate-slice-of-power.html?module=inline> gives rural areas (and small states) disproportionate strength. “That’s an obvious problem for Democrats,” Mr. Rodden said. “This other problem is a lot less obvious.”
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Posted in political polarization<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=68>


“Election fraud? Florida won’t pledge to look for voters registered in multiple states”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105267>
Posted on May 22, 2019 9:01 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105267> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico<https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/05/22/voter-fraud-florida-wont-commit-to-effort-to-look-for-voters-registered-in-2-states-1026006>:

An effort to clamp down on potential voter fraud in Florida has been bogged down by an unlikely source: the state’s Republican-controlled administration.

More than a year ago, Florida legislators gave permission to the nation’s third-largest state to join a multistate partnership to flag people registered to vote in more than one state.

Florida, a haven for semi-residents who trek yearly from the North and Midwest, has long been hit with reports of people possibly voting in more than one state. Republicans — including President Donald Trump — have complained about voter fraud despite a lack of evidence.

A top state election official who works for Gov. Ron DeSantis told local election supervisors on Wednesday that it wasn’t clear when — or if — the state would become a member of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. Member states exchange voting information and look for duplicate registrations.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“Should the Electoral College Be Eliminated? 15 States Are Trying to Make It Obsolete”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105265>
Posted on May 22, 2019 8:44 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105265> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT reports.<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/us/electoral-college.html>
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


Federal District Court Orders Further Relief to Get Spanish Language Materials into the Hands of Voters in 32 Florida Counties<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105262>
Posted on May 22, 2019 1:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105262> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Court order. (Dated May 10.)<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/131-rder.pdf>

There’s a rulemaking in progress<https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/laws-rules/rules/> for new rules in time for 2020.
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Posted in Voting Rights Act<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>



--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>
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